How to Increase Email Deliverability the Easy Way
You’ve got a killer promo ready to send to your email list. You know it’s going to convert at ridiculous rates and generate outstanding revenue in just minutes.
All you have to do is hit “send” and watch those sales roll in… right?
Well, unfortunately, it’s not that simple. Without the proper steps taken, your emails may never reach your subscribers at all. You see, that awesome promo is completely useless unless you can increase email deliverability.
Deliverability is one of the most important keys to email marketing. Without a high deliverability rate, few will ever see your message, no matter how great it is.
Here’s Five simple steps to increase email deliverability.
- Have a Clean Email List.
Consider removing or suppressing inactive subs and hard bounces. Even if those subs have double opted-in to your list. Permission based email marketing does have a “time limit.” If you have a large number of inactive subs, your deliverability may suffer as engagement metrics are lowered.
ESP’s look at inactive email recipients as dead names. The more dead names you send to, the higher the likelihood and ESP will not inbox even your active subs.
Sequester inactive subs into another list and work on reactivation (we’ll share reactivation techniques in a later post).
- Be Sure to Have Simple and Visible Unsub Instructions
Sending emails to subscribers who WANT to read your materials helps ESP’s verify your messaging is, in fact, valuable. But sending to subs who DON”T want your messaging can cause some big problems.
By making your unsubscribe instructions visible and easy to follow, you can rid yourself of those folks who may otherwise hit the dreaded SPAM button.
Losing a double-opt in email subscriber via “unsubscribe” is far better than losing one via the spam button. Fewer spam complaints means increased email deliverability, and that translates into more revenue.
- Know Your List
Subscribers who are interested in your material are the best subscribers. By sending content that matters to them, you’ll increase engagement. Increased engagement means increased deliverability. Be sure your content is relevant to the makeup of your list, is error free and all about them, your subscribers.
If you deal in multiple verticals, be sure to segment your lists by the categories you’re marketing or messaging. An auto enthusiasts list may not be very happy when they receive offers for the latest mountain bike technology. By knowing your list and keeping it well segmented, you’ll be able to increase email deliverability to your selected targets. You can increase revenue with messages that matter to the subscribers.
- Have fun and engage your subs.
Your content should matter to your subscriber, just as much as she matters to you. Engaging copy will help you increase subscriber trust and CTR’s. Don’t be afraid to be playful and informative with your subscribers. Give them what THEY want.
By offering subscribers information and products that are useful to them, and enjoyable to read about, you’ll end up with more engagement, higher deliverability, better open rates, better CTR’s and more sales.
- Validate and Verify Your Names
Perhaps the most important step is validation and verification. If you’re having deliverability issues, It’s possible your list includes spam traps, bad addresses and bots.
Hard bounces from bad addresses should be completely removed. But spam traps can be a little trickier. They look like real email addresses but are used by ESP’s to identify spammers. Even the best lists can have dozens or more spam traps in them. By sending to them, ESPs see you as having poor list hygiene or spammy acquisition practices. You must get rid of SPAM traps.
By validating and verifying all the addresses in your list, you’ll be able to remove bad addresses, spam traps and bots. You’ll be left with real email addresses for real subscribers. This simple yet important step can help you greatly increase email deliverability and boost those revenues.
Now that you’ve completed these 5 steps to increase email deliverability, you’re ready to send that killer promo and start raking in the revenue!
